It’s easy to have a million ideas. But what do you do with them? Where do you keep them? How do you organize them? How do you know if your ideas add up to anything valuable? How do you know if it’s a book or - whatever? It’s important to have a system for keeping track of your ideas that works for you as part of your writing lifestyle. To help you come up with your own, this episode will show you three very different systems and how they were used to write real books.

How do you write consistently in the middle of the unpredictability and responsibilities of your everyday life? Managing yourself - knowing how to use your time as a writer, and running your own writing days - is a foundational skill needed to be a writer. NOW is the time to develop that skill. You can decide what a perfect writing day is for you right now, and it can change over time, but whatever it is, you’ll probably have to plan it and prepare for it to happen. This episode will help you do that.

Let’s get to know our writing strengths! “The Road Back to You” author Ian Cron helps us see how the Enneagram personality assessment can help us better take advantage of our strengths, help us understand our built-in weaknesses, and even help us pick an editor. We’ll see how knowing our personality type and being self aware can be invaluable as a writer. You’ll definitely see yourself - and others you know - and you may end up deciding to cut both of you some slack! :)

If writing a book is important to you, sooner or later you’ll find yourself confronting a book launch. You need more than tips you find on google - you need to know how you can launch a book yet remain a human being whose family still knows you and loves you.

Here are our stories of what we didn’t realize for some of our launches, and how we now see that it didn’t have to be so awful.

You’ll hear the inside reality of how a book launch feels and how to take the pressure off. Tips and ideas on how to enjoy your launch and feel happy and satisfied. When to start thinking and planning your launch. And how to launch in a way you’re happy with, that serves your reader, and maximizes sales.

So you’ve been writing for awhile but you feel like you’re not really growing an audience, like nobody really cares. Should you change what you write about? And what would you change to? How can you get to where you write about something you’re deeply interested in AND that deeply resonates with your reader? Changing and pivoting is human. Learning what works is part of the natural process. So let’s learn to pivot together.

Thinking you need a writing mentor is way easier than actually finding one. And there are questions you may not have considered: Are you even ready to be mentored? Are you already being mentored without realizing it?What if you could make the progress you want, learn what you need to learn, and get the perspective and insight of a person you respect - without ever meeting them? Is that mentoring? In this episode we’ll help you really think through finding the perfect mentor for you. BUT, it might not be what you expect, and when we’re done, you might forever change how you think about mentoring.

You’d never guess it’s controversial but it is. Once a month in the Hope*Writers Facebook group a friendly debate pops up about the best way to let readers know you’ve written a new blog post. What do you do when the guru’s say one thing and your gut says another? What is a guru anyway? Plus, before you decide how to use email, there’s a bigger question to answer. Let’s talk about that question, and about what’s best for you and your readers.